Adventures in the New Year

Spokane was engulfed in a gorgeous snowstorm yesterday, and the above photo was taken from my apartment window at sunset. This view is such a balm in the cold winter months--a sight that is still a marvel to me every year.

Speaking of the years, sending each of you very warm and happy wishes for 2015. I am excited and hopeful for these brand new months ahead, and ever grateful to be here writing and sharing words, ideas, discoveries, and projects.

Here's how the turn of 2014 into 2015 has looked these past few days:

 

This awesome backpack was a gift from my older sister for Christmas. It holds everything from books and notebooks to gym clothes and my lunches. 

{It also has an adorable grimace, which I discovered the other night.}

One of the very first meals of the year was from this amazing cookbook, Toro Bravo, a collection of recipes inspired by and also served at its namesake restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Joe and I were lucky enough to eat there last October, and we absolutely loved the cocktails, the grilled flat bread with arugula and truffle cheese, and some amazing seafood dishes, including the Paella Toro--beyond delicious!

Joe made the flat bread and he also found a new recipe for us to try: sauteed chard with egg--both were perfect. We're excited for more tasty new recipes in 2015, and I'll keep doing my best when it comes to the baked goods--pies and breads ahead, methinks.

This adorable couple greeted us when we arrived at Manito Park yesterday. Apparently not all the ducks have flown south, and I'm not sure what this means, but they were pretty cute.

{So is this guy.} 

 

There were dozens of cross-country skiers and sledders in the park, too. I've never tried cross country skiing, but this looked like a wonderful way of getting around yesterday--far better than driving, for sure. It was one of the busiest Sundays we've ever seen, and the snow just kept coming for hours. *Breathtaking*

And more ducks. It's a mystery to me, but it looks like they're here to stay through the season. The snow was here for a day and was replaced by rain in the middle of the night. We woke up to sloshy puddles and a lingering fog, which isn't nearly as thrilling, but alas, it's probably just right for a Monday. I hope you're starting your week off in good spirits and with happy memories from the holiday weekend.

Before I sign off, here are some older, but still very relevant words from writer George Saunders on kindness in The New York Times. This is one of my favorite passages:

Some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish — how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”

Cheers, xo

'Tis the Season for Pie

What you see right there is a Black-Bottom Oatmeal Pie, or a Poor Man's Pecan Pie, as it's dubbed by Brooklyn-based sister pie artists Emily Elsen and Melissa Elsen, co-authors of Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. This book was gifted to me by my ever-thoughtful brother-in-law, and I've made exactly two of them so far. My sweet beau has made one. All three have been delicious. 

The truth is, I'm not really a pie person. Don't get me wrong: I will never say no to a bite or a slice of pie, if that's what's in front of me, but in all candor, I'm more of a cake gal myself. Chocolate cake. Flour-less chocolate cake to be exact. The Black-Bottom Oatmeal Pie was the first recipe from this book that I tried because as you can imagine, the black bottom refers to a chocolate ganache layer, and I kind of assumed that with the toasted oats, it might taste like an oatmeal cookie. It didn't. It tasted like a pecan pie with oats, which is precisely what the pie sisters suggested would happen.

This was a trial run for the pies we would eventually present at Thanksgiving dinner--a job I was tasked with at one of our more recent family dinners, and which I happily accepted.

Now, back to the "I'm not a pie person" comment. The thing is, I love making pie for other people. Pie is a very special gift when it's brought to the table, and I take the job seriously. It's truly labor intensive (I'm not one for laboring too much in the kitchen, so anything that takes more than 45 minutes qualifies as such), and it becomes in this sense, a labor of love.

While the flavors were intense and the pie worthy of consumption, we agreed that it wasn't quite right for a Thanksgiving dessert. We also realized that pie is truly intended for sharing among a group of friends. The two of us put a good dent in it, but it was more than we could handle in its entirety.

There is nothing more tragic in the culinary world than tossing leftover pie. Duly noted.

Come Thanksgiving Day, we decided on two pies from our new pie book. I was in charge of the Cranberry Sage, and Joe tackled the Egg and Grog (a boozy pie that tastes like egg nog!). 

'Twas divine.

The ingredients smelled delicious! A combination of spices, including sage, shredded apple, fresh cranberries, dried cranberries, sugar flour and all the rest. As I carefully folded these ingredients, I knew this was definitely the right pie for the occasion.

I'm still working on my lattice skills--but I'll get there!

Both pies were well-received by our family and friends, and now that it's been a week, I'm ready to start plotting my next pie. What I love about this book is that the pies are split up into seasons: There's a smattering of options depending on what fruit is available in the markets, and I must say, this makes for a far less-daunting pie book. It's good to know that we can pace ourselves. Some pies may wait until Spring.

As for the pie sisters, they run their own pie shop in Brooklyn--aptly named The Pie Shop--and their book is inspired by memories of home cooking, their family, and of course the pies they've created for their local community. 

Read more at birds black to check out their pie book and to learn about some other cool pie projects theses sisters are cooking up.

Also, they take beautiful pie pictures--perhaps the most photogenic of all desserts. What's your favorite holiday/winter pie?